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On the road again: Holiday season travel increasing

By Paul Paterra newsroom@heraldstandard.Com 3 min read

Even though the cost of everything from hotel rooms to airfare to gas continue to be on the rise, it hasn’t put a dent in holiday travel plans.

Sandy Davis, owner of Davis Travel Agency in Monongahela, has witnessed this year’s increase in travel personally and professionally. Earlier this week, Davis flew into the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport.

“They said it was busy all day,” Davis said of the airport in Savannah, Ga. “Savannah’s airport was busy, even more so than Pittsburgh, and that was at three o’clock in the morning.”

She said her business has been hopping as well.

“People are traveling,” she said, and increased prices don’t seem to be serving as a deterrent at all. “As long as they have that plastic credit card, they’re happy. I’ve been really busy. I have a lot of people traveling for next year already. They’re traveling and it looks like the holidays are going to be busy.”

Jim Garrity, director of public affairs for AAA, said early indications were that slightly less than 55 million people planned to travel 50 miles or more for the Thanksgiving holiday, an increase of 1.5% from 2021.

“That’s 98% of pre-pandemic levels,” he said.

AAA’s figures also showed that about 1.7 million people in Pennsylvania had travel plans for Thanksgiving.

“The vast majority of them will be driving,” Garrity said. “Air travel is having a bigger growth than driving, but more than 90% of the people that travel end up driving. So, it’s over the river and through the woods.”

That’s despite average gas prices in the state of $4.002 per gallon as of Nov. 23, according to AAA.

Garrity added that even though most people would be driving to make their holiday destinations, there are increases in air travel and alternative modes of transportation such as trains and boats.

But airfare prices do continue to skyrocket, increasing by nearly 21% in the second quarter of 2022 according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation. Statistics show that from the first to second quarter of 2022, the average cost of a domestic flight in the U.S. increased from $328 to $397.

Like Davis, Carl Brandtonies, owner of Worldview Travel in Washington, said rising prices aren’t putting off those who’d like to get away.

“We’re having a lot more earlier bookings. I think because of the COVID, when nobody was able to get away, that they understand (costs) are going up. People just want to get out, out and about,” he said.

Garrity said the heavy travel of the Thanksgiving week is an example of how much people have been traveling all year and expect to continue to do so throughout the remainder of 2022.

“Even in the face of gas prices that are 20 cents to 50 cents (a gallon) more expensive than last year, more people say they’re driving, which could be as much of an indication as anything that people are ready to get back to traveling, get back to making memories and seeing family and friends that maybe they haven’t seen in a while,” he said. “I think people are willing to pay the higher gas prices and take that financial hit to go back to traveling. They can travel safely now. There are more opportunities. It’s part of a trend that we’ve been seeing all year.”

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